Coco told me that she wanted to write an essay. She titled it “Education”. You may notice a new format. Coco has started punctuating more – she is using periods, commas, and question marks. There’s also a mark on her board for noting capital letters. So now we can use proper sentence format. Coco’s words will no longer be in all capitals, but I will keep my remarks in italics to keep them separate. Next we will work on paragraph structure and apostrophes.

You might wonder what a totally non speaking person needs with an education. Well I am going to tell you. All human beings deserve the chance to be educated. Eyes alone are not sufficient tools to assess what is inside a person. Dont ever presume to know the inner workings of someone elses mind or heart. Everyone should have access to age appropriate teachings. Just because my hands dont always obey my brain, I have been considered retarded my whole life. I got lucky. I got the chance to break out of my prison of silence. Even still, my mom has to fight for my right to an education. I know there are hundreds of thousands, or more, of kids out there still trapped. What would the harm be of teaching too much? Shouldnt schools err on the side of caution? Isnt that preferable to underestimating a whole population? Who was ever hurt by being taught too much? You never know what a person with severe apraxia is learning because the output does not match the input. But even speaking autistics have this problem and are underestimated. The letter board, for me, is a life line. It does not betray me like my mouth does sometimes. What is the harm in giving it a chance? Years of ABA trials did nothing to teach me anything except pain tolerance and patience. A regular ed classroom cannot result in the emotional trauma I have already experienced. So why not give it a chance? I just know with an education I will have a much more fulfilled life.

Hi Coco,
Education is so important and I’m so sorry you’ve had such a hard time with the ABA trials. I think you’ll really enjoy the classes you will be taking in the Fall. I’m currently in a Graduate Program to become a teacher and we’re learning about all the different ways to help students just like you have the best education. Teachers will support you and so will your classmates! You’re a great writer, keep it up 🙂
Kerry